Actually, I used to use MacJournal, but I need something much more powerful these days, even for my personal stuff. I just kind of outgrew it. But back when life used to be a lot simpler, MacJournal was the very first program I discovered when I switched from OS 9 to OS X. It’s a very neat program!
Alexandria
This discussion actually brings up a topic I’ve been meaning to ask about here. I keep noting on these boards that some Devonites (Devon-tees?) also continue to use similar programs, the two most frequently mentioned being MacJournal and CopyWrite. I’m pretty happy just using DevonNote and TextEdit for my admittedly limited needs. I have recourse to Word and AppleWorks, but seldom use them because I rarely need to actually do much formatting, as I generally just send my stories to my editors as rtf files with basic formatting. So my question is, what do MacJournal and CopyWrite give writers that Devon doesn’t? And how do you use them as complements to Devon?
Hi Brett,
Actually, I don’t use CopyWrite and used to use MacJournal but gave it up in favor of programs like Hog Bay Notebook and then DEVONthink. I use Mellel as my word processor and mostly DEVONthink and a couple of notebook programs for everything else. I guess my needs fall into three categories–project/idea conception, development, then actual writing (a novel, article, whatever). The first need is where I like to use something that can map it out visually for me and then follow as a kind of whole. I need to see my project all at once, visually, or I lose track of things. I use a program called Nova Mind to help me get a project started. It works pretty well at stimulating ideas and the like.
I use a notebook program like Hog Bay Notebook or Circus Ponies Notebook (been using CP) to help me develop my project. Right now it’s a dissertation for a Ph.D.–very long, very involved, lots and lots of material to keep track of, and lots of thoughts and ideas that I need to develop and track as well. I use DT to manage the material and resources and have been using a notebook as a development tool. I’m now trying to pare that down to maybe DT for all of it, database/resource management and idea development as well. The development part of things is the tough one for me. I haven’t found one program that does everything I need it to do yet, and I can’t seem to get happy with any of the ones I try.
Mellel is my word processor of choice for writing, especially for long projects. It does all the citation (along with Bookends), footnoting, endnoting stuff I need, and it has an amazingly simple and elegant outlining structure that I have become completely dependent on. I can manage my entire dissertation and endnotes all in one document, see it all laid out in outline form immediately, move sections around, etc.
So I use DT as my main database/resource management program, where I house all my reading notes, research, etc. (and it’s a LOT Of stuff!). I use notebooks for development of a project, and I copy material from DT for a specific project and to DT from the notebook if I want to keep something permanently. I use Mellel to actually do the writing.
Hope this helps. Have to run,
Alexandria
I looked at both MacJournal and CopyWrite and sense why others like them: you see the contents of a document in the left pane, a selected portion in the center, and in the right, a note or resource, like a Web site.
DT Pro has the same cability, if you use the 3-pane view: line up folders on the left, see scenes or chapters in the top, and work on portions of text in the bottom. The folders may contain any kinds of resources, from URLs to images, maps, and tables.
I first used DTP to store project materials, but increasingly it’s become a place to arrange and draft as well. In a story I’m writing, I first had folders for characters and places, but later I wanted to arrange them in a timeline. I created a Calendar folder, drag-dropped all dated pieces of text, and edited their names by year/month/day. The new sorted order gave me completely new ideas about how to arrange chapters.
Best or all, a re-ordering like this does not alter original entries, since a select-drag-drop of text only creates a copy. It’s like throwing around cards on a table and playing with their order.
I wish I could give a smart, original, groundbreaking answer tot Brett’s question, but unfortunately I can’t. I must admit that DT continues to be rather intimidating to me: its very richness for me is its major drawback. Bill De Ville’s help is unvaluable, but I continue to feel the need of a good, thorough, understandable manual, that takes you by the hand and leads you step by step through the endless forest of DT’s features and decision moments.
In private, I like to keep things simple. That’s why for jotting down my private things, I prefer to use a simple application, which doesn’t force me continually to think about the best way of using it. Unfortunately, that’s all there is in my case. I must say, though, that MacJournal has features which I’d like to see implemented in DT: for instance, its keywords feature, which I dearly miss in DT.
Like Alexandria, in the past months I have become heavily dependent on Mellel’s Outline feature. I own OmniOutliner too, but I rarely use it. Mellel’s Outline is sufficient for my rather simple needs. If Mellel in the future will get more layout features, à la Frame Maker, I doubt I’ll need anything else in the field of wordprocessing.
Like other participants to this discussion, I tried a host of other wordprocessors, data base applications, mindmapping tools and notebook-like instruments, which I won’t enumerate here; but in the meantime, I have discovered the point of diminishing returns. Trying out all these applications and participating to the discussion on their forums requires an enormous amount of time. My curiosity has been satisfied, but I doubt that my work as such has really benefited from it.
That’s why in the near future I’ll try to stick to DT, DA, Mellel and MacJournal, and to become more confident with the first two of them.
I use CP Notebook (was using Hog Bay Notebook until CPN 2.0 came along) for project organisation, simply because it does this particular job a whole lot better than DT. In fact, while I admire DT, I’m not sure it plays a role for me anymore, simply because I can’t dice and slice information as effectively as CPN/HBN/OmniOutliner can with their use of metadata/columns. Using one of these coupled with Finder+Spotlight (and having all my links to files available through CPN) is currently a better solution for me than running an extra program (ie. DT Pro) just to hold documents. Yes, I miss out on a lot of DT Pro’s strengths, but my need to effectively organise data with metadata is currently greater than the preview/search/clipping abilities of DT Pro. But perhaps that will change with 2.0?
This is interesting because I’ve been finding myself doing just the opposite. As I use the DTPro/DEVONagent combination more and more I find myself using NoteTaker, CopyWrite, Safari, etc., less and less. Perhaps it’s because I’m doing scientific research and generating reports rather than writing fiction or screenplays and it seems simpler/more facile to write my report sections in the same app where my information is being stored. I still tend to use NoteTaker for outlining a project or report but I think that will quickly change if DT outlining tools are slightly enhanced.
I, as do so many others apparently, keep wondering if I’m utilizing my toolset as effectively as I might, however. For example, NoteTaker is simply amazing at this point with the things it can do and is fully spotlight searchable. But it currently doesn’t seem to be fitting my workflow as well as DT. I think it is a problem with the notebook metaphor and its inflexibility. It’s simply too hard to get from one page to another elsewhere in the notebook. Copywrite allows one to work without the application being in the way at all, but I still have to switch to DT to get my info for cutting/pasting/referencing and my main searching program, DA, can place everything I find into DT easily, not as easily into NoteTaker (although it does have a contextual menu) or CopyWrite (where it would be useless for other projects anyway. I’ll stop because I’m rambling, tired, and I have a huge amount of work to do by COB. I think to some extent I keep trying to use the other programs because I hate to not use things for which I’ve paid both in terms of money and time spent.
I’d like to know more about how you are using the programs that you mention to slice and dice your information for your workflow. I think that we are all getting more and more overworked (maybe because we keep checking out all these workflow programs? 
) and any efficiency increases or new ideas are welcome.
ChemBob
I’ve used both OmniOutliner and Hog Bay Notebook, but now I write with the Devon suite (Agent, Note, and Think Pro). They have similar interfaces, share data easily, and for me replace most other writing tools.
Search engine: Agent is fast and screens out junk.
Outliner: in Note, turn on (View: Sort: Unsorted)
Key words: in Think Pro, use Concordance, Search, and Similar
Metadata: in Think Pro, the 3-pane view, plus Search, Classify, and More
I like the way they work together and let me muddle with stray thoughts. For a final text I still must export to Word, mostly because publishers love it for tracking revisions and proofing.
Yes, I feel this too. I’m really trying to pare down my program usage and then to just stick to that. I agree with Timotheus that it gets to be a point of diminishing returns. It hit me when trying out yet another suggested program and feeling incredible frustration at the loss of time (so I dumped it!).
I hear you! On both counts–money and time spent!
I would be very interested in continuing to see how other people make DT work for them. There are some really creative ideas out there, and, being new to Pro, I feel like I’m only scratching the surface. I am hoping that I am just not yet seeing how DT could function as my ‘notebook’ program so I can just eliminate everything else from the picture and really simplify things down to DT and Mellel (and DA for researching the internet, and maybe HBN for the simple stuff like my personal diary and writing short fiction, etc.).
Alexandria
Yep, me too. And I really wanted DT Pro to be that does-it-all program. My problem is metadata. I’m a journalist who writes mainly to weekly deadlines. Some articles only require a one-line note and basic contact details; others have 50 reference files and several hundred words of notes. And then there’s my freelance stuff, which often takes 10,000 words of notes and dozens of files accumulated over time. All grist to DT’s mill, except for managing time. “Time” is really my problem with DT - there’s no way to create listings of articles by deadline. Ideally, they would also be sortable by priority, issue date, publication and other criteria. Labels just don’t cut it - I end up with DT looking like a toyshop - and nor do comments.
My other hesitation is that while DT can engulf many file formats, doing away with the need to file in the Finder, it doesn’t take them all. So, for instance, when I was trying DT Pro recently, I was able import and read most of the reference files I have on a topic, but not the Powerpoints. So I still need a Finder file … and I think to myself, if I need a Finder file, do I really need DT? I can use Notebook (which with v2 I can now get around as quickly as I can navigate DT) and fill it up with file links, and then have the data presented as I want it. That’s my current thinking, anyway.
I’ll probably take another look at DT 2.0. DT seems the logical choice for a journalist, except that right now it isn’t, unless someone can offer a workflow that persuades me otherwise…
Wow, looks like I’m not the only one with these concerns! Thanks to all for your replies. Let me just address amcawood’s question here, and explain how I use Devon Note for my weekly columns. I make a folder for each column date, and that folder contains all the note files (press releases, liner notes, etc) that I use to write my story, along with the story itself when I write it in DN.
I’ve only had to search those folders a few times since I started using DN, but each time I’ve found what I needed PDQ. I also start a folder for each future column (about 2 months worth) and drop notes into each folder as appropriate. Then when I’m ready to write that week’s column, I have a bunch of notes ready to go.
When it comes time to write, I use a three pane view of my own devising, since I don’t have DT Pro. The top part of the left column/window displays my note files in that week’s column folder, while the bottom part of that left window displays the text the note I’m reading from as I write that section of the column; the right hand window displays the text of the column itself in progress. Obviously this is easier on my external display than on my 12" Powerbook’s screen.
I write everything up from the notes (helped mightily by the live word counter), then switch to a near full screen view as I rewrite and clean up. Then I export to Word (because the production staff prefers it for some reason) and email to my editor.
I’ve used pretty much the same process for longer freelance magazine stories. I’m still tied to Hypercard for my book in progress, but am considering the laborious process of pasting in those 800 cards to Devon notes; we’ll see. Now that Classic’s days are officially numbered, I need to finish the book before I buy a Macintel, which won’t be till 2007, probably.
I don’t know if this will help amcawood, but it works for me for short pieces with little formatting. Can anyone tell me a more efficient method, using DN, DT, MacJournal, CopyWrite, or whatever?
I don’t use DN for all my text generating needs; I save web pages, articles, emails and other tidbits as TextEdit rtf files stored in Finder folders, but am willing to switch everything over to DN if anyone can explain how that’d make life easier. Like someone mentioned above, I too wish DN had keyword searching via categories or comments, but thus far, its current search technology seems to be sufficient for my needs. We’ll see if it still works well enough to handle all the info compiled for my book!
I also agree with the praise for Mellel; I absolutely love its outlining feature and if I had to buy a word processor, it would undoubtedly be The One. But as I already have Word, AppleWorks, TextEdit, and Devon, I’m not sure why I need Mellel, as I don’t use footnotes (although I might eventually with my book project). However, when I get back to work on my long book chapters, I might well use Mellel because the outlining makes it so easy to navigate through long docs. But for now, I can effectively use each DevonNote as an outline point or chapter section, then merge them all when I’m done writing.
That’s why I raised this topic in the first place: given the fact that I can use Devon notes as a kind of outliner anyway, how would I gain in efficiency by using CopyWrite, MacJournal, or even Mellel? The proponents of each praise them so much that I wonder if I’m missing out, and yet despite these informative posts, I’m still having trouble seeing what functions each offers that can’t be duplicated by DN (let alone DT or DT Pro) alone.
As I prepare to return to my book project now that school’s out, I’m eager to hear from anyone who can show me how any of these apps will help me. Please keep those replies coming – I share the experiences that all of you have mentioned (e.g. being overwhelmed by Devon’s possibilities yet unsure how to use them, wondering if learning a new app will ultimately save me more time than it costs to ascend the learning curve, etc.)
Hi Brett,
After looking through all of these amazing responses and corresponding with some of these eloquent folks, and working through my own issues with this, I’m starting to think that less is more. I think that, I myself, have let myself get ‘seduced’ and become dependent on some of the features offered by the individual applications instead of really tapping the potential of any one of them. Like how to make DT work with metatags, and how to get DT to function as a ‘front end’ app, etc. Especially now that I have my hands on Pro. Yes, it means a lot of learning and time spent, but that’s happening anyway with trying to manage multiple programs. I may ultimately find myself turning back to something else, but I think that my quest for the perfect writing program is coming to an end for the moment, and I’m going to really explore the possibilities with what I already have! It seems to me that there is no Holy Grail for writers, at least not yet, so I’m looking to the basics–what it is that I cannot do without, period, and build from there. For example, I know that DT has the greatest capacity for what I need than any of the others. So, I’m going to build on that and explore ways to make this program work for me. I did the same with Hypercard way back and used that system for years and years (the scriptability of Pro makes this more feasible). And then I can look to something like Mellel when I do use footnoting and endnoting and work with really large projects.
So, from where I look now, at the end of a long, long train of programs tried and found wanting in one way or another, I’m not sure I would want to encourage you to change your workflow one bit! If your needs change, then there are plenty of suggestions, like CopyWrite, or Mellel if you need its functions, etc. It sounds like you have found a way that works, and that makes you one of the lucky ones. I say, if it works, don’t fix it!!
Alexandria
PS that doesn’t mean I won’t continue to keep my eye out for that Holy Grail…just in case…
Yes, Alexandria. But get to work on that dissertation. 
Awww, Bill! Do I have to?
Ha! Yes, Bill, you are quite right. To work I go! (I mean that is the whole point of all this, right?)
Alexandria
I have just had a play with OmniGrafflePro4 beta. It is able to export back and forth between OmniOutliner and you can create an outline inside OmniGrafflePro. The magic thing though is that you can edit the outline and in real time see a structural map grow before your eyes. Nodes come and go and re-shuffle as you edit the outline. You can of course edit the map and the outline then updates. This is cool.
Heres some screen shots: http://www.eccentrix.com/members/andrew/omni_map/
Its probably not a place you would develop any major work (like Mellel etc) but in terms of visualising, brainstorming and concept mapping your writing at the early stages this visual feedback could be useful. One could for instance create an outline of characters and plot, depicting relative importance and relationship (indicated by size and colour etc). The graphical view might make it easier to visualise globally all those relationships (related colour shades and connecting lines) including the non-heirarchical connections.
Anyway, it might interest you to trial the beta version.
As a writer, researcher, and teacher, there’s a lot of @*&$ that I feel obligated to keep track of. I’ve boiled it down to four apps: Entourage, DevonThink, OmniOutliner, and Mellel. Entourage is obviously for all the picayune stuff that just doesn’t deserve a long-term place in your life – I find that I can cover a lot of stuff imaginatively using “Notes” and “Tasks” this way. DT, OO, and Mellel are obviously for bigger projects, and my workflow is not unlike what a number of people have reported already:
DT -> OO -> Mellel
OO is just so good at structuring information, and allowing you to manipulate it quickly both with a mouse as well as with the keyboard – something not so easily done with either of the two programs on either side of it in my little diagram above. The new in-line notes view is just stunningly easy to write in. The ability to move back and forth between OO and its sibling OG is, of course, an added bonus. And as someone who thinks visually, OG is a real boon. (I tried Tinderbox, but it assumes certain kinds of visual thinking which OG does not. Plus, it made my head hurt.)
Right now I’m using DT Pro because it allows me to have separate databases, allowing me to peel off projects as they move into active production. So I’m using it on my current project, a history and ethnography of gumbo in south Louisiana, as a research notes database – trying out the model that seems to be suggested by Steven Berlin Johnson on his website (but which is never made entirely clear to my mind).
But I want to thank everyone who describe HOW they actually use DT Pro, because I find the more examples I read, as I take breaks from my work to daydream and explore a little. Everything you write prods me to find new ways of doing things.
john
John:
Let me welcome a fellow user from Louisiana.
Interesting project. I had seafood gumbo for lunch. Picked it up at Ralph and Kacoo’s in Baton Rouge. Wonderful food, but perhaps not quite as good as the gumbo my father used to make.
Hey, no fair talking about Ralph & Kacoo’s to this ex-Louisianian! You’re making me hungry for crawfish and oysters. Meanwhile, can laudunum elaborate a bit on how you use OmniOutliner? Everyone praises it so much, and although I have the previous version, I’m still trying to figure out what it can do for me that Devon can’t.
This struck a chord with me. Because of the amazing rate of innovation in OS X software, holy grails keep appearing, and I now own DT Pro along with VoodooPad, StickyBrain, CP Notebook, Tinderbox, OmniGraffle, OmniOutliner, Inspiration and MindCad Pyramid. Sticking to one would be tantamount to recognizing that I’ve been wasting my money, and I’ve resisted the option, partly for that reason, and partly because just as I feel like settling with one app I come across a blog entry or review lauding one of the other apps I own (or even one I don’t own; I barely managed to resist the temptation to buy Boswell last week.)
Your post and some of the others in the thread have shown me that DT Pro really can do a lot of stuff, and I’ve failed to discover a lot of its capabilities because I’ve been too busy flitting between apps to really plumb its depths. Furthermore, things that it can’t do may not be crucial as long as I’m prepared to be flexible. So I’m going to try eliminating Tinderbox, VP, StickyBrain, and all the others from my research work. I’ll continue to use Mellel for actually putting together complete documents. But I have a specific question regarding references.
For the last few years, I’ve been using Bookends to manage references and citations, and now have a database of more than 700 records. Many of these include extensive annotations of my own. I often export subsets of the database to my iPod, and that allows me to look through a stack of references when I’m at a coffee shop, and clarify in my mind which are key. Bookends works well with Mellel, so it’s quite a nice combination in the later stages of putting together a paper.
But there are some uncomfortable overlaps with DT. I’ve been using Bookends to organize PDFs of articles for which I have references. Usually, I remember to drag the PDFs into DT first, but not always. With every PDF in DT, I tend to wonder whether I remembered to enter it into Bookends (and entering references by hand, which I usually end up doing, is very time-consuming). Conversely, with every article in Bookends, I wonder whether I remembered to put it in DT. It’s maybe not such a big thing, but it tends to disperse concentration. And of course it’s not only in the later stages of writing that keeping track of references is important, and I’ve sometimes found myself typing references into DT that I already have in Bookends because it’s less effort than searching Bookends.
Bookends can format references in all the major formats. And it can import and export RIS, Endnote Refer, BibTeX. That means that I can import data from sites like OUP Journals that kindly provide citation data in these standard formats. It also means I can export citation data to a wiki like UniWakkaWiki that handles BibTeX, allowing me to share reference data online in a way that ensures it won’t have to be entered by hand again. I suspect that it would be unreasonable to expect DT to duplicate this kind of functionality, so I’m reluctant to give Bookends up. But I also have to recognize that the way I’m working now is not a good one. Can anyone give any suggestions or pointers to help me clarify my choices?
Sorry for the long post,
Rick
Rick,
Thanks for the long post ! You describe many of my own experiences and needs. I would like to store my bibliographies, annotations and original papers if available in DT only – no need for a second database. There was a similar thread in the Mellel forum. In my case there are additional constraints that keep me away from using special software like Bookends or Sente (weird languages, no availability of data on the internet, no formatting known in the modern = English speaking world etc.)
DT is like being made exactly for people who keep their bibliographies and work on them. I could think of a plugin that searches international libraries or bookstores – like several shareware apps do (useless for my research, sniff). And I could think of an export plugin that exports tables e.g. in formats that we can design (like export as HTML is possible, there could be export as XML with the names of the columns and the table as root, most simple but useful).
I hope for Mellel opening its exchange format for bibliographies in the future, otherwise I hope to be able to enter my bibliographical data later via XML…
So far,
Maria